• danwritesbooks
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    12 days ago

    I just got a random email from someone saying they love reading my books and I am one of their favourite authors ever.

    I figured it was just a spam email since I get them frequently - usually wanting to sell me something - and its too my author outlook email which is advertised in the books and on my twitter profile, etc.

    Check the email address and it’s from an education email address - so the ones they give assign to kids at school.

    Could still be a bored student taking the piss, but I choose to believe I just got my first ever fan e-mail.

      • danwritesbooks
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        12 days ago

        Right!

        I’d love to say thank you but the way the world is, it probably isn’t a good idea.

        • dumblederp
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          12 days ago

          Thank the kid via a return compliment to the schools contact email address?

          • danwritesbooks
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            11 days ago

            It didn’t say the school - email address was like a state wide one - but worked out a solution that will hopefully work.

    • Duenan
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      12 days ago

      I would have loved to have you in as a book week author but my clientele are just a bit too young I reckon.

      That nice fuzzy warm feeling when someone appreciates your work is so heartwarming.

      • danwritesbooks
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        11 days ago

        It is an amazing feeling. Really motivates me to keep going when that motivation can be lacking.

  • StudSpud The Starchy
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    12 days ago

    So I’ve completed 3/4 knowledge assessments, and submitted 2/4 practical assessments. Tomorrow is prac day, so I can ask the questions I need, finish up the one assessment I still need to do, and then submit those. Then I’ll check the last quiz tomorrow afternoon, and attempt it, note down any questions and save it for Friday. Once that last one is done, I’m finished with my classes for the semester and can enjoy some holidays!

    I still can’t believe I’ve changed my trajectory.

  • oztrin
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    12 days ago

    Not long back from the vet.
    Results of second and more comprehensive ultrasound - Sammi has pancreatitis.
    Hopefully they’ll be able to control it with cortisone injections.
    Also she got a bravery award from the ultrasound people and the staff said she was a model patient and love her. Which is nice. 😊

    • StudSpud The Starchy
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      12 days ago

      Aw poor baby, pancreatitis is so painful 😣 I hope that if she is back with you, that it is a mild form of it and she’ll make a full recovery! She’s a toughie and I’m positive she can pull through! 💜💜

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        12 days ago

        She’s still Very Cross with me, so most I can manage is a stealthy head snuggle 😂

    • just_kitten
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      12 days ago

      Poor Sammi cat, she has been through a lot. At least there’s answers now. I hope the treatment works too

    • melbaboutown
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      12 days ago

      Poor baby :( Such a good girl.

      Melbcat was on steroid tablets for a while, didn’t know there were shots.

  • Seagoon_OP
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    12 days ago

    ta da, I finished the little cabinet and have loaded up some of my shell collection. I think it looks pretty cool and I’m well pleased with how it turned out. 🙂

    spoiler

  • just_kitten
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    12 days ago

    Onto my sixth load of washing today and I might squeeze in a seventh as I think the sheets will dry quickly (been doing clothes, towels, oodie, blanket, doona cover/pillowcases…) What a relief, i havent changed my bedclothes in ages and the whole house feels so much fresher now that all of this is getting washed.

    Going in and out has also definitely helped break the monotony of today’s work, which I just have no mood to do at all. People suck!

    E: that was a long day and I didn’t get everything done. But I do have heaps of laundry to fold tonight after dinner! Even the cuffs of the oodie are dry which is a surprise given it was only out for about 2 hours.

    I’ve been watching Los Espookys after enjoying Fantasmas so much and it’s a nice low key fun show in Spanish. I really hope Fred Armisen’s characters daughter gets impaled in the second season though, the aggro shtick didn’t fly as humour

  • Gibsonhasafluffybutt
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    12 days ago

    Surprisingly easier to disconnect from work thoughts with this job.

    It only matters when I’m sitting in front of the laptop, and then, it’s over.

    Kinda nice for a change.

  • melbaboutown
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    13 days ago

    I’m normally happy being frugal, it’s been a way of life for so long. But I have to say I’m getting really sick of it being so severely enforced. Especially as disability = hard mode.

    I’m not happy with the direction Australia is going for any of us. As much as people tighten their belts it’s pointless. Corporations and banks just take more, the government just cuts more. The severity of this could have been avoided.

    • PeelerSheila
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      12 days ago

      It’s great to be frugal, but shitty to have absolutely no other choice but to have it so ruthlessly rammed down your throat. The farmer struggles for a minimal return, consumers pay a premium for bare essentials and the fat cats and shareholders in the middle get all the cream. Grocery shopping is essential and should be treated as such, with essential items price protected, but time and time again governments are gutless wonders.

        • PeelerSheila
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          12 days ago

          Yes, I totally agree. When I was young I used to think, if you’ve worked hard and bought yourself a little weekender or property to one day retire to, like some of my friends did, then good on you. But with negative gearing, stagnant wage reform, stagnant social security payments, the air bnb situation, and people owning not “a little weekender” but 10, 20, 100 properties, it’s beyond a joke. Housing is a right and should never be treated like it isn’t.

          • Jay Stephens@mastodon.social
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            12 days ago

            @PeelerSheila @melbaboutown Not to mention the way the outsize returns from property investment once you’re rorting the tax breaks and negative gearing means it is sucking investment money out of the productive sectors of the economy, and thus hurting the skills base and our capacity to continue as an advanced economy.

    • Seagoon_OP
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      13 days ago

      so many hugs

      in times like these our friends and family is our greatest asset

        • dumblederp
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          12 days ago

          Policy is written for those with the funds to lobby for it. The concept of policy is great. The reality of policy is that it seems written for corporations these days.

          On being frugal, I like that frugality almost directly links to anticonsumption. But there’s being frugal and becoming poor because everything is costing more. I used to spend slightly less than I brought in, now I’m spending slightly more.

        • Seagoon_OP
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          12 days ago

          of course, but we should also take measures on a personal level to make our lives safer, more stable and more resilient against the knockbacks of life

          • melbaboutown
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            12 days ago

            It’s all I’ve ever done. I scrimped and saved for a long time to get an emergency fund for myself and Melbcat, and our money is getting eaten into so already rich people can get obscenely rich.

  • Duenan
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    12 days ago

    I have been well fed.

    Nothing beats a simple beef sausage and bread with tomato sauce with some coleslaw.

    I’m now kicking back on the coach trying not to fall into a coma now.

  • dumblederp
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    12 days ago

    Government House. I think the photo didn’t load. Here for a friend’s OAM.

  • Force_majeure123
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    12 days ago

    Training is draining. Today is day 8 of training in new job and I’m tired. Still another week and a half at least of just training. Feels like my cup is full but they just keep on pouring, and now that stuff theyre pouring is spilling out of the cup onto the table, dribbling off the table onto my pants so it looks like I’ve peed myself. Peed myself with excess knowledge.

    • bacon
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      12 days ago

      be grateful it is water not curry

      i was there three thousand years months ago and now i can confidently answer the new trainees’ questions

      making my own notes also helped a lot if they allow you to bring it home to study

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      12 days ago

      No train, no gain, Force! cracks whip You shall imbibe of The Knowledge until it flows out of all your orifices like a jacuzzi!

      No but srsly that first firehose/info dump is hectic especially if you have superiors whose brains maybe work differently and just go at full speed in bursts and expect everyone else’s to. Hopefully it all gets less overwhelming after the first month

    • Llabyrinthine
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      12 days ago

      Peed myself with excess knowledge.

      Don’t know why, but this is just hilarious to me.

  • danwritesbooks
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    12 days ago

    It’s so nice how little my work have for my regard they schedule some randoms to have a meeting in my ‘office’ and not tell me.

    So work from home today.

    • MeanElevator
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      12 days ago

      I would just sit in there and carry on working. Perfect time to slurp coffee or tea as loudly as possible.

    • Taleya
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      12 days ago

      so how many items did they steal from your office?

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        12 days ago

        They stole my cubicle walls a few weeks back. Which means no one can see my ‘sometimes I feel like a t-wreck’ with a picture of a sad looking T-rex on there picture. And also my garfield ‘I hate mondays’ picture.

  • imoldgreeeg
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    12 days ago

    pakige…

    Two days with “we couldn’t deliver”. Two days I’ve been here all day. Either they are not trying or they can’t figure out how to operate a buzzer.

    EDIT: more ranting Oh and now they have cut me off from the phone line three times in a row. I’m now on chat to Amazon making a complaint. I’ve never had anything delivered by Dragonfly couriers before - this is terrible

    EDIT EDIT: Ok I know amazon are evil and all that, but 3 mins in the chat and they are sending me a replacement with a new courier company. THat is nice

      • StudSpud The Starchy
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        12 days ago

        Looking forward to the post apocalypse, just so I can build a shack and call it my own. Defend it with some pitchforks and I’m sorted. May the enshittification continue so that one day I may own a home lol

  • Baku
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    13 days ago

    Today’s little “hobby from a distance” is looking at vinyls and high end hi-fi equipment I can’t afford

    A Baku can dream

  • tombruzzo
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    12 days ago

    I’m reading the Alien 3 screenplay by William Gibson after watching Alien: Romulus. It’s great to see Newt and Hicks get proper character moments in a follow up story. And from what I understand, the story does things with the Aliens we haven’t seen on screen yet.

    Also, it sucks that they killed off Newt at the start of Alien 3, but something had to be done about her. At the end of Aliens she went into the sleep pod, so she would look a lot like she did once she came out.

    The movie languished in development hell for years. As a teenaged girl she’d look very different in Alien 3 to how she did in Aliens. With all the production problems behind Alien 3, it seems like the easiest option than come up with an in universe reason why she’s aged. If they went with Gibson’s script and got Alien 3 out 2 years or so after Aliens they could have covered it up a lot more.

      • tombruzzo
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        12 days ago

        The very same. There are a few unproduced Alien 3 scripts around but Gibson’s is considered the best we could have got.

        Unfortunately I haven’t found a PDF but this is the best web version I’ve found. I saved it to Pocket and I’m reading it on my Kobo

        http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/alien3_gibson.html

        • mysticgreg
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          12 days ago

          Thank you for this! I saw Romulus on the weekend, and actually re-watched Aliens just last night!

          Will definitely be checking this out :)

          • tombruzzo
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            12 days ago

            There’s also an Aliens: Engineers screenplay floating around which eventually became Prometheus. It’s not perfect but I prefer it to Prometheus. The lore is similar and it helps lock in details since things are explained on the page in a way that may not fully translate on screen.